DREAMLAND – The Online Bibliography

Much of the research for DREAMLAND was done online. I consulted studies in PDF form, Youtube videos, government websites and industry trade publications.

It seemed pointless to list these and their sometimes quite lengthy links in the book itself, where no one could link them. So I’ve put them here, where readers can view with one click the study or report in question.

I checked all the links before posting them. Sometimes, of course, links or websites are removed from the Internet. Please let me know if you find that one of the links I list here is no longer working. I can be reached at samquinones7@yahoo.com.

____

Certain government agencies have produced numerous studies relevant to the prescription-painkiller abuse problem.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse published this report in 2011 estimating addiction resulting from treatment for chronic pain at between three and 40 percent.

Medical journals also provided important information:

The Journal of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy ran this 2001 survey on the widespread under-treatment of pain.

Thirteen years later, The American Journal of Public Health ran this editorial by several doctors insisting that widespread abuse of opiates was due in part to physicians’ overprescribing the medications.

A history of Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence in 1989, written by Everett May and Arthur Jacobson.

____

The Letter to the Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, published on Jan. 12, 1980, and authored by Jane Porter and Dr. Hershel Jick can be read here.

The letter was mostly promoted as evidence of the low risk of addiction to opiate painkillers in speeches by pain specialists and nurses at numerous conventions, seminars, continuing medical education workshops. However, among the printed citations exalting the letter’s findings were the following:

I gleaned details of the life and career of Dr. Russell Portenoy from an oral history at The John C. Liebeskind History of Pain Collection at UCLA. (The official sourcing: Oral History Interview with Russell K. Portenoy, 17-18 April 2003 (Ms. Coll. no. 127.67), John C. Liebeskind History of Pain Collection, History & Special Collections for the Sciences, UCLA Library Special Collections, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, University of California, Los Angeles.)

How much time, on average, primary-care physicians spend with their patients is discussed here, and here, and here. This Newsweek story in 2012 reported on managed care leading to shorter doctor visits and more patient dissatisfaction. Two studies on how to improve primary care are here and here. The need for more primary care doctors is discussed here and here.

The decline of multidisciplinary pain clinics is discussed in this article in Practical Pain Management by Dr. Michael Schatman.

The Veterans Affairs’ Opioid Safety Initiative, a response to widespread painkiller abuse and addiction, is discussed here and here and here.

____

Information on the collegiate recovery movement, which has gained great momentum from the increase in opiate addiction on many campuses, is available at www.RecoveryCampus.com. This story is about efforts to promote addiction recovery at the University of Alabama, which opened its recovery campus, including sober tailgate parties, in 2012.

____

For more on the intractable pain laws that states began to pass in the late 1990s, there is this in Medscape detailing how different states address the issue of opiate prescribing, and the regulations each has in place. There’s also this in 2001 in the Western Journal of Medicine that, among other things, discusses California’s AB 791.

Online, the Lexington Herald-Leader ran this excellent report in 2003 on the pill problem in Eastern Kentucky, devoting space to Procter and his legacy. That same year, Procter testified against one of his ex-employees, Dr. Rodolfo Santos.

Much of what I learned about Xalisco, Nayarit came from interviews with narcotics agents, police, prosecutors, and, especially, young men from the town, most of whom had been involved in selling black-tar heroin in the United States.

13 Comments

Just finished reading DREAMLAND. It was well worth the time. I learned much about the black-tar heroin and the history of oxycontin. The book should be read by everyone who is involved in this public health epidemic, which is only getting worse. As a representative for Coroners who see the death at the front lines of this issue, the problem of substance abuse is not diminishing even with all the public attention to the issue. We need to develop real solutions by reinvigorating our churches, our communities and our families. Hope has to be keystone of our lives — hope for a job, hope for a family, hope for participation in an all inclusive society. In other words, as the book concludes, it is essential that everyone’s vision of their Dreamland become a reality again.

“This problem began with a revolution in how we thought about pain in America. A way of thinking took over… that we were a country in pain and we had to aggressively treat that pain,” he remarked. “All across the country we began prescribing pills for things that had never received a prescription before — and in massive quantities — while believing the whole time that these pills were non-addictive.”

I remember this, though it was long ago. Glad to see somebody else does. As a personal experience, the last time I broke a bone, my sister in-law asked me to get “pain pills” from the doctor if he asked me about the pain. I was a bit clueless at the time, but sure enough he asked me if I needed something for the pain. He seemed very apprehensive about it, and I wondered how my sister in-law knew he would ask. I told him if Ibuprofen didn’t work, I could live with it. He seemed very relieved, and my sister in-law very disappointed that I hadn’t received anything. Of course I realised later that she (and many more people I know) are addicted to these things. Are doctors required to ask this now?

Thank you for writing this book. It helped me see the bigger picture and helped me realize how this addiction spread so fast and hard. When my son began abusing alcohol and drugs my husband and I were so unaware of what was happening. He would seem to recover and then fall back. Not until he was arrested and jailed did we realize how serious it was. We began reading about opiate addiction but answers were hard to find. After a decade of addiction, including a third long term spell in treatment, he is in recovery and working at the recovery center he attended. He has been clean for two plus years and is studying for a degree in social work. Our story is one of hope, but we have neighbors who have lost sons forever. Treatment that was hard to find several years ago now is available thanks to money from the settlement won by our former attorney general. I wish all white middle and upper class parents understood that this can happen to any of their bright well educated children, because it has. We are not in Eastern Kentucky, but our drug treatment center has plenty of people from there. I have noticed doctors and dentists prescribe fewer pills for pain relief now, which is good. However the new drug of choice is heroin and overdoses are too common from the news reports I see. I wish there was a way to convince kids not to get started on opiates.

I may be doing something wrong here but I am unable to link to the resources online. I understand not having the references inside the book but I was hoping to find a much larger bibliography.

” Thirteen years later, The American Journal of Public Health ran this editorial by several doctors insisting that widespread abuse of opiates was due in part to physicians’ overprescribing the medications.” This leads to a dead link and a 404 page not found error.

” The Letter to the Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, published on Jan. 12, 1980, and authored by Jane Porter and Dr. Hershel Jick can be read here.” Unfortunately, there appears to be no hyperlink.

It would be really great to have links to Jennifer Sabel, Jaymie Mai, and other authorities quoted in the book so that the reader can find the appropriate references.

[…] story behind the letter was documented extensively by journalist Sam Quinones in his 2015 book “Dreamland,” an account of the opioid crisis in the United States. According to Quinones, the letter seemed […]

Thank you for your book. Your description of the operation and delivery system of black tar heroin in the Pacific Northwest was spot on. As a recovering heroin addict who lived in Portland, OR, Seattle, WA in the 90’s, I spent countless hours on St. corners and in the back of non descript 1980s American made 4 door sedans buying balloons of heroin (and cocaine for that matter, as speedballs were my preference). I used to marvel how I would run into the very same runners/drivers in different towns up and down the west coast.

Another closely related and similar story is the Honduran crack trade on the West Coast (and possibly elsewhere) the used young boys but rather than cars they held corners in cities up and down the west coast, I would see the same kids (as young as 12 or 13 years old in SF and Portland and Seattle.

Again thank you for the accurate and important story, you gave us a voice.